Early Book Review: Firstlife by Gena Showalter

Author: Gena Showalter
Series: Everlife #1
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: February 23rd 201
My Rating: 5 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

ONE CHOICE.

TWO REALMS.

NO SECOND CHANCE.

Tenley “Ten” Lockwood is an average seventeen-year-old girl…who has spent the past thirteen months locked inside the Prynne Asylum. The reason? Not her obsession with numbers, but her refusal to let her parents choose where she’ll live—after she dies.

There is an eternal truth most of the world has come to accept: Firstlife is merely a dress rehearsal, and real life begins after death.

In the Everlife, two realms are in power: Troika and Myriad, longtime enemies and deadly rivals. Both will do anything to recruit Ten, including sending their top Laborers to lure her to their side. Soon, Ten finds herself on the run, caught in a wild tug-of-war between the two realms who will do anything to win the right to her soul. Who can she trust? And what if the realm she’s drawn to isn’t home to the boy she’s falling for? She just has to stay alive long enough to make a decision…

*Disclaimer: I received a free e-ARC of this copy from Netgalley and Harlequin Teen in exchange for an honest review.

Life after death is one of those topics that will always be of interest to people, for various reasons, whether it's scientific curiosity, fear of the unknown or personal beliefs. I've always been fascinated with how different people interpret and imagine it, which is what attracted me to requesting and reading Firstlife.

I was very fascinated with the mythology of this world, the idea that you can choose where to go in the Afterlife, either Troika or Myriad. Usually the story of the afterlife is pretty much the one we've grown up with, that if you do good in this life, you end up in Heaven, if you do bad things, you end up in Hell. So I really enjoyed that aspect of free will and the fact that no matter what you do, you can choose how life after death is going to be like.

Tenley, or Ten as friends call her, is in a really bad place at the beginning of this book. I admired her courage, her stubbornness, and her conviction. I personally would have folded and would have accepted anything just to make my life easier. I liked the fact that she was also very loyal to her friends and that she had that "no man left behind" code, when a lot of other people wouldn't have given a damn. I also enjoyed her fascination with numbers. I thought that made her a very unique character and made her stand out more.

The boys, Killian and Archer, make the entire story much wilder and interesting than I first imagined. I didn't get the feeling of a love triangle, which made me insanely happy. Instead, I got the impression that they were willing to put their differences aside and make the right choices for the things they believed in, even if it might have gone against their world. There's an interesting dynamic not only between the two guys and Ten, but also between the guys themselves. There's definitely a story worth exploring there and I'm sure that there's a lot of other stuff that wasn't mentioned in this book that I want to see mentioned in the next books.

Aside from being a fantasy, dystopian story about life after death, I feel like at the core of this book there's the theme of parent-child relationships. I felt like the asylum was a giant metaphor for dysfunctional, toxic relationships between a child or a teenager and whoever raises them and is their legal guardian, be they a biological parent or whatever. It was something that honestly surprised me a little bit, because I wasn't expecting that, but it was done beautifully and I am glad that this was one of the many themes in the book.

As far as pacing goes, I felt like it was well paced, not too fast, not too slow. The ending came out of nowhere and I was shocked that it ended the way it did. It was a massive cliffhanger in my opinion and I am curious to see when exactly will the story be picked up in the next book.

This was a fantastic read and I am very, very excited for book number 2 and the (hopefully) many more books to come.

The Secret Life Of A Book Blogger Tag

I saw this yesterday on Great Imaginations and decided to do it, since it was so fun to read that post.

1. How long have you been a blogger?
I've been blogging on and off since about 2005, but I started my book blog in 2010.


2. At what point do you think you will stop?
I don't actually. Unless something happens that makes blogging to stop being an enjoyable activity, I don't plan on stopping in the near future.


3. What is the best thing about blogging?
Meeting new people is always fun, both readers and authors, editors, publishers, and so on. I enjoy talking about books and discovering new authors, new genres. I don't think I've ever said this before, but sometimes I feel like I'm competing with myself, to see how many new authors I discover in a year. Since I usually get...not bored, bored is not the right word here... let's say less excited about reading books in the same genre after a while, I'm always open to try out new things, new books, new authors, new genres. Blogging has really given me the opportunity to have access to these things, not because of "free books", but because by connecting with other bloggers I get to hear what's new in Bookland and I stay informed.


4. What is the worst thing about blogging? What do you do to make it okay?
Drama. I try really hard to stay away from it, to ignore it, to not bring it here, on my blog. Unfortunately, with media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, I do get to find out whenever drama happens. Some stuff is good to know, like when bloggers are being catfished or when they're harassed for writing negative reviews, but sometimes some of the stuff I hear about really makes me want to scream in frustration, because come on people, most of us are adults!!


5. How long does it take you to create/find pictures to use?
I use Picmonkey and I used to use Paint Shop Pro to create graphics. It took a bunch of time and it still does, but I kinda enjoy the work.


6. Who’s your book crush?
Roth from the Dark Elements series by Jennifer L. Armentrout is pretty dreamy. Acheron, Styxx and Savitar from the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon are dreamy too. And Hawkeye is also a good character to have a crush on. As for girl crushes, my ultimate girl crush is Rose Hathaway.


7. What author would you die to have on your blog?
That's a hard question. I wouldn't necessarily die to have certain authors on my blog, but I'd certainly hyperventilate a little if Sherrilyn Kenyon, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Kelley Armstrong, Kylie Scott or Joanna Wylde would stop by. I'd faint too, let's be honest here.


8. What do you wear when you blog?
PJs. I blog when I'm home and my normal, day-to-day clothes when I'm indoors are my most comfortable PJs.


9. How long does it take you to prepare?
Oh gosh, it takes me a long time. I get distracted a lot. I need to have the perfect playlist to blog, but then I waste so much time making up the perfect playlist on youtube (because the radio pisses me off most of the times because for fuck's sake, if you're going to play a song, play the full song and don't talk over it!). But then the light is not good enough, so I need to go turn on the light. If I'm in bed when I blog, I arrange my pillows tons of times to get the perfect writing position and so on and so forth, and then Poof! the day is almost gone. Or if it's not that, then I must check out if some other bloggers had similar ideas in discussion posts and then I read a bunch of posts and never actually start writing my own. But once I start writing, I write until I'm finished with a post.


10. How do you feel about the book blogger community/culture?
Like I said before, I actually enjoy it here. I've met tons of people that I do like to consider my friends, even if I don't always talk to them. I've been in a shell ever sine I hit my teenage years, not talking to strangers, not feeling in my element in clubs or at big parties, and basically being an introvert. To this day, my idea of an awesome Friday night is staying at home, in my comfy PJs, surrounded by fluffy pillows, drinking tea and reading a good book. So while I still don't like parties, blogging has allowed me to interact more with people and basically rediscover the very social girl I was as a kid.


11. What do you think one should do to get a successful blog?
Not stress about pageviews and followers too much and blog about something you're passionate about. I used to look at the pageview count and at the followers number and cringe. Then, a few months ago it hit me like a freight train: I didn't start blogging because of it. When I made that first post almost 6 years ago, I did it because I wanted to talk about the books I loved and potentially meet other people with similar likes and dislikes in literature. I didn't do it to become famous, I certainly didn't start it for the possibility of free books (true story: when I decided to start my own book blog I thought only "famous" bloggers got free books, which meant they absolutely needed to have press credentials. I was young and new at this, okay?! Don't judge!). I did it because I was passionate about books and because most of my friends only read classic literature and didn't understand my love of the books I enjoy reading, no matter the genre. So my advice, without sounding patronizing, is blog about what you want to blog about, don't let yourself be ruled by stats, and definitely, definitely don't let other people's blogging choices define what you think is or isn't a successful blog. Unless you're doing it for income, this should be a hobby, not a second full-time job.


12. Who do you tag?
Like Kara did in her post, I tag anyone who feels like doing it. It's an awesome tag and if you want to do it, go ahead. Leave a comment if you did, to check out your answers :D

Book Review: Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru by Tera Lynn Childs

Author: Tera Lynn Childs
Series: Creative HeArts #1
Publisher: Entangled Crush
Release Date: September 14th 2015
My Rating: 3 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

When life gives you a blank canvas, make art.

Sloane Whitaker hates everything about moving to Texas. She hates leaving behind her friends and half her family in New York, starting over senior year at Austin’s NextGen Academy, and having to say she lives in Texas. Most of all, she hates that it’s all her fault. If she wants to earn her way back to the Big Apple, she has to prove she can still be the perfect daughter.

Which means no vandalism art, no trouble at school, and absolutely no Tru Dorsey, her serial screw-up neighbor, who loves nothing more than pushing her buttons.

But from the moment he vaults onto the roof outside her bedroom, there is something about him that makes her want to break every rule. Suddenly it’ s not the ten things she hates about Tru that are at the top of her list. It’s the ten reasons she doesn’t want to be without him.

*Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from Netgalley and Entangled Publishing, LLC in exchange for an honest review

I know this has probably been mentioned a few times by different reviewers, but my first thought when I saw the title was to thing of the movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which to this day is one of my favorite movies of all time. It is probably because of that connection that I had such high expectations for this book.

I enjoyed the fact that the main character was in the school of arts, as it's something I haven't read about before. I thought Sloane was an interesting character. The story hinted a few times at "the incident", which you get to find out about towards the end of the book. I really hoped that Sloane would be more accepting with how things are because of that thing that happened because of her. Most of the book she kept saying how much she hated Texas and the fact that she had to move, which at times got to be a little too much for my liking.

I liked Tru. Like Sloane, he has his secrets that he doesn't want anyone to know about. His story did break my heart, because he is a great guy, despite his family and his relationship with his parents.

This was a quick and fun read, although the ending did feel a little bit rushed. I found out there's a sequel, so I'm hoping that some of the questions I was left with will be solved in later installments.